{"id":314056,"date":"2025-10-18T18:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314056\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T18:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:34:13","slug":"lynne-ramsay-recalls-working-with-totally-terrifying-joaquin-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314056\/","title":{"rendered":"Lynne Ramsay Recalls Working With ‘Totally Terrifying’ Joaquin Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDie, My Love director Lynne Ramsay<\/a> was hosted by the BFI London Film Festival<\/a> on Saturday and reflected on filming with A-list stars Joaquin Phoenix<\/a>, Jennifer Lawrence<\/a> and Robert Pattinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Scot\u2019s latest feature \u2014\u00a0following Lawrence as Grace, a new mother who finds herself spiraling into the depths of psychosis \u2014\u00a0had its U.K. premiere Friday night at London\u2019s Royal Festival Hall, with Ramsay going into more depth about the filming process at a Saturday Screen Talks session with fellow industry execs and creatives.<\/p>\n

\n\tKnown for her movies Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002) and We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Ramsay discussed getting to know Hollywood heavy-hitters and recalled meeting Phoenix, star of her 2017 neo-noir psychological thriller You Were Never Really Here. The film follows Phoenix as a traumatized mercenary named Joe, who is hired by a politician to rescue his kidnapped daughter in\u00a0New York.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s amazing,\u201d began Ramsay, \u201cI mean, he\u2019s totally terrifying. He\u2019s a beast, you know? When I first met him, I was like \u2014\u00a0oh, my God, I think I said something really stupid like, \u2018Are you left-handed or are you right-handed?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe went on to explain the lengths that Phoenix, an Oscar winner for his performance in Joker, would often go to on set. \u201cHe would just never do the same thing twice, he\u2019d just surprise you,\u201d she continued, remembering one unscripted take where Phoenix purposely fell down some stairs. \u201cEveryone\u2019s running, going, \u2018What\u2019s happened to Joaquin?!’\u201d said Ramsay. \u201cHe just thought, \u2018I\u2019ll try this and see if it works.\u2019 [\u2026] Honestly, I\u2019ve never worked with such an exciting actor in my life,\u201d she added. \u201cHe\u2019s phenomenal and he wants to just get on with it \u2014\u00a0he\u2019s not into all the paraphernalia and these bullshit things\u2026 I feel bad for telling you that story because he\u2019ll kill me!\u201d When filming wrapped, Phoenix suggested they take the same crew and make another film straight away.<\/p>\n

\n\tRamsay delighted the BFI LFF audience with a couple of anecdotes about You Were Never Really Here, including one on a French financier who was desperate for it to go to Cannes. \u201cHe was obsessed with Cannes,\u201d recalled the celebrated filmmaker. \u201cHe wanted to see a cut every week\u2026 [I said], \u2018You can wait until you get the director\u2019s cut. But he persuaded me into it. And then [he said], \u2018This is shit, this is shit\u2019 for the rest of the edit, which was actually so soul-destroying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJoaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the movie finally nabbed a spot on the 2017 Cannes lineup, there were still scenes to shoot and Ramsay was left with a week to get the film ready. It later won best actor for Phoenix and best screenplay at the prestigious festival, but it was \u201cthe nuttiest film I had ever been on,\u201d according to its director.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked about bringing music into her films, Ramsay admitted it was only after working with Radiohead\u2019s Jonny Greenwood on You Were Never Really Here that she had enjoyed hiring composers. \u201cI never used music unless it was in the scene. And then the more and more I worked on features, and especially after I worked with Jonny Greenwood, whose work really enhanced my film, I changed my mind,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause I feel that music can tell you so much about character.\u201d She added that receiving files from Greenwood, who recently composed the score for Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s buzzy thriller One Battle After Another, was like \u201cgetting a Christmas present\u2026 I was just blown away by the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTowards the end of the session, Ramsay was nervous to reveal too much about her latest film with Lawrence and Pattinson. \u201cJennifer Lawrence was just in a permanently bonkers situation,\u201d she did tease, before going into depth about the characters of Grace and Jackson. \u201cShe does the most outrageous things, but he still loves her, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut she kind of takes it to the limit,\u201d continued Ramsay. \u201cIt\u2019s also about her marriage and whatnot, and she feels a bit invisible\u2026 There\u2019s all that hope moving into a new house, there\u2019s wild sex and then a baby comes in and he doesn\u2019t want sex with her anymore. Those kinds of things that happen in relationships are in the film as well as elements of [postpartum depression].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe BFI London Film Festival 2025<\/a> runs Oct. 8-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Die, My Love director Lynne Ramsay was hosted by the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday and reflected…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":314057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,150433,150434,134937,1801,83401,47408,158112,1589,102222,376,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-314056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-bfi-london-film-festival","12":"tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2025","13":"tag-die-my-love","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-jennifer-lawrence","16":"tag-joaquin-phoenix","17":"tag-lynne-ramsay","18":"tag-phoenix","19":"tag-robert-pattinson","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115396612510510018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}